"It seemed their whole outfit was driving that one steer, and turning
the others loose to graze. Dick never changed the course of that
steer, but let him head for ours, and as they met and passed, he
turned his horse and rode onto him as though he was a post driven in
the ground. Whirling a loop big enough to take in a yoke of oxen, he
dropped it over his off fore shoulder, took up his slack rope, and
when that steer went to the end of the rope, he was thrown in the air
and came down on his head with a broken neck. Dick shook the rope off
the dead steer's forelegs without dismounting, and was just beginning
to coil his rope when those varmints made a dash at him, shooting and
yelling.

"That called for a counter play on our part, except our aim was low,
for if we didn't get a man, we were sure to leave one afoot. Just for
a minute the air was full of smoke. Two horses on our side went down
before you could say 'Jack Robinson,' but the men were unhurt, and
soon flattened themselves on the ground Indian fashion, and burnt the
grass in a half-circle in front of them. When everybody had emptied
his gun, each outfit broke back to its wagon to reload. Two of my men
came back afoot, each claiming that he had got his man all right,
all right. We were no men shy, which was lucky. Filling our guns with
cartridges out of our belts, we rode out to reconnoitre and try and
get the boys' saddles.

"The first swell of the ground showed us the field. There were the
dead steer, and five or six horses scattered around likewise, but the
grass was too high to show the men that we felt were there. As the
opposition was keeping close to their wagon, we rode up to the scene
of carnage. While some of the boys were getting the saddles off the